Polycom Becomes HP's Provider of Telepresence Solutions for Both Resale and Internal Deployments
Polycom and HP to offer innovative, end-to-end UC solutions to customers globally
PLEASANTON, Calif. - Jul 27, 2011 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), today announced the close of its acquisition of HP's Visual Collaboration business, and the agreement under which Polycom will serve as an exclusive partner to HP for telepresence and certain video UC solutions, including both resale and internal HP deployments. The acquisition and agreement doubles Polycom's immersive telepresence marketshare and further strengthens Polycom’s leadership in the UC video market, which is growing rapidly as businesses of all sizes around the world are using video collaboration as a strategic and cost-effective way to improve productivity and create high-performance workplaces. In addition to HP, Polycom works with a large and diverse channel community representing multiple routes to market, including: distribution partners, value added resellers, service providers and systems integrators. Polycom’s uncompromising commitment to open standards and 100% channel orientation remains unchanged.
The two companies also recently agreed to make Polycom's enterprise-grade video applications available for HP's webOS platform, in keeping with Polycom's commitment to enable mobile UC as a key element in its UC Everywhere™ vision.
"Polycom is excited to close this acquisition and we welcome Halo customers to Polycom. We're looking forward to our expanded strategic relationship with HP, to offer customers an end-to-end UC solution with an unparalleled user experience, open standards-based interoperability, the industry's best TCO, investment protection through backwards- and forwards-compatibility, and ease of deployment," said Andrew Miller, Polycom president and CEO. "HP has enormous global reach, and our broadened relationship with the company is another important step in meeting Polycom's commitment to bring the most advanced and innovative UC solutions to market – from mobile video applications and UC software to room and immersive telepresence solutions. In addition, Polycom and HP share a strategic ally in Microsoft, and we believe our combined offerings will provide transformative benefits and value to customers worldwide."
In the rapidly growing UC and telepresence markets, Polycom has emerged as a leader and continues to gain significant marketshare in both video endpoint solutions and video infrastructure. In the latest Wainhouse Research quarterly report on video conferencing and telepresence, "Wainhouse Spotcheck: Videoconferencing Q1 2011," Polycom gained nine points vs. the previous quarter and extended its leadership in video endpoint unit shipments to 45 percent market share in Q1 2011. Polycom also grew three points sequentially in video infrastructure revenue (Polycom offers the UC Intelligent Core™ platform), as the overall video infrastructure market grew at 24 percent year-over-year.
The acquisition strengthens Polycom's leadership position in the UC and telepresence markets by bringing HP's installed base of visual collaboration products and technology together with Polycom's customer base – the industry's largest at about 1 million video systems. The acquisition includes the assets of HP's Visual Collaboration business, including the Halo Products and Managed Services business. Polycom picks up customer sites with many Global 500 customers across 36 countries.
For current Halo and Halo Video Exchange Network (HEVN) customers, Polycom will deliver uninterrupted services and support– providing the same quality of experience and service level agreements these customers have enjoyed and expect. Polycom is also committed to providing interoperability between Halo deployments, Polycom telepresence systems and open-standards UC systems.
Polycom and HP's Expanded Alliance
Under the terms of its agreements with HP, Polycom provides expertise in software technology and UC infrastructure and solutions, covering the full continuum of integrated and secure mobile, desktop, room and immersive telepresence solutions. HP provides its expertise and leadership in go-to-market strategies for UC solutions and will resell Polycom's UC solutions including: mobile, personal and group UC devices, UC Intelligent Core software platform, UC managed services, and audio/video software.
Together, Polycom and HP empower collaboration, increase productivity, speed decision making and help create high-performance workplaces across industries and the globe by offering a tailored approach to customer requirements and supporting a variety of UC solutions that scale and evolve as business needs change.
"Clients are seeking ways to enable their employees to share information faster, increase responsiveness and ultimately improve productivity," said Arthur Filip, vice president and general manager, Technology Consulting, HP. "HP works with clients to create their unique Unified Communications strategy, transforming their communications infrastructure to improve collaboration and business responsiveness. By collaborating with HP and Polycom, clients will benefit from an end-to-end UC solution that will address their needs today and in the future."
Polycom Unified Communications (UC) Solutions
Polycom Unified Communications (UC) solutions bring people face to face from anywhere, creating a highly collaborative environment that significantly improves learning, retention, and engagement as well as overall productivity and efficiency. Polycom helps organizations of all sizes, across all industries, become high-performance workplaces where individuals and teams collaborate on-demand between any location, over any network, with their device of choice.
Polycom UC offerings include high-definition voice and video solutions for personal, mobile, group and immersive telepresence experiences – using up to half the video bandwidth required by other UC solutions. The Polycom UC Intelligent Core is the only platform that connects up to 75,000 devices and enables 25,000 simultaneous calls with 100% auto-failover, providing the best-in-class user experience on a global scale. With Polycom's broad ecosystem of strategic partners, Polycom provides the most comprehensive, reliable and scalable collaboration platform for managing and delivering UC solutions to employees, partners and suppliers – on premises or from the cloud.
Transfers of the assets in certain countries are subject to completion of various foreign legal requirements.
